Faces of Love
by quickand2thepointless
Summary: The loss of Juubei's sight might be divine punishment, a price he deserved to pay for harming the person most precious to him, but there is still one beautiful face he wants to see one more time in spite of his better judgment. Juubei/Kazuki one-shot.


**A/N: **Hello, readers! This is my first story for the _Get Backers _fandom, and I hope I don't disappoint. I really love the Juubei/Kazuki pairing from the series and wanted to write a continuation of my own from it. Enjoy, and feel free to share your thoughts with me!

**Timeline/Spoilers: **Timeline is after the first battle in the Limitless Fortress but before the second. Spoilers for the MakubeX arc, naturally.

**Disclaimer:** Get Backers isn't mine (it's Ban and Ginji's!), but this story is. No stealing!

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**Faces of Love**

Even though Juubei could no longer see, there were so many things he remembered. Whenever Sakura spoke, he could conjure a perfect image of her face, accurately placing the length of pink cloth across of her forehead and noting where folds would appear whenever she turned her head. When MakubeX pounded away at his keyboard, filling a room with the familiar clack of his busy fingers, he could recall just how quickly they used to fly from one character to the next, their long length and neatly trimmed nails barely perceptible as they moved.

He could remember Kazuki, too, almost better than he remembered anyone else. The silken quality of his hair, the two bells that were left ever ready for his fingers to find, the loose clothes he wore that always left men peeking for a hint of breasts, the warm eyes that could easily turn cold when threatened. Those eyes were what Juubei could last remember seeing. They had regarded him with such desperation, begging him to understand why they didn't need to fight each other. But Juubei had thought he had made the right choice; Kazuki had abandoned him, after all, and he could not go back to being his right hand, his eyes, his protector. Better that one of them should die then continue to live with a half-hearted truce.

But had been wrong, and in his wrongness he had not only hurt the person he held as most precious, but had taken away his only hope of beholding his face again. It was divine punishment, and he was willing to say as much to Kazuki himself, but inside his heart it troubled him more than he would admit. He could remember Kazuki's face from their childhood up until the very moment he had last looked at it, but he would never be able to see it as they grew older and as time changed them both.

"Juubei?"

Kazuki's voice came from the direction of the doorway, so Juubei turned his head to where he thought he might be. He could see the slightest bit of light, but nothing more. All of their trips to hot springs together had not been for nothing, but he didn't want to confess this small triumph just yet. It could be the full extent of his recovery, and he didn't want to get Kazuki's hopes up too early.

"You're here tonight?" Juubei asked. Kazuki had been spending most of his time outside the Limitless Fortress while Juubei had been sticking beside MakubeX and monitoring the New Volts, so it had been awhile since they'd seen each other. As much as he wished Kazuki would spare some time for their old home turf, he enjoyed the stories Kazuki brought back of his adventures outside and of all the odd people cropping up around Ban and the Lightning Emperor's recovery service.

"I'm not a kept man like Shido," Kazuki said, and Juubei was certain he was smiling. "I don't always have anywhere regular to stay."

"Do you miss it?"

"I miss you." There was the sound of footsteps, and Kazuki sat down beside him on the bed. "How are your eyes?"

"They're fine."

"Should we visit the hot springs again? I know you're busy, but..." Kazuki trailed off. Juubei imagined him with a conflicted expression on his face. He knew how important stabilizing the New Volts was, but he was just as concerned about Juubei's eyes as he was about the Limitless Fortress.

"I could find some time, but I'd prefer to go out of season again."

"I understand. It wouldn't be enjoyable if there were a lot of people watching you while we tried to treat your eyes."

_Watching you_, Juubei corrected him. He doubted his bandaged eyes were as fascinating to on-lookers as Kazuki's slim and naked body and long, damp hair. Even Ban and Ginji had mistaken him for a woman until they were just inches away from his body. Juubei hadn't been able to see it himself, but he had felt the slick hand on his bare shoulder and called to mind the number of times he had seen him fully disrobed before, a vision of pure beauty from his flowing hair to his long and flexible legs.

"You have that look on your face," Kazuki said, interrupting his thoughts. "It makes me a little bit sad."

Juubei started in surprise. If anything, he thought he had been smiling to himself rather than looking sorrowful at the memory.

"I mean," Kazuki corrected himself, "that whatever you were feeling and thinking just then, you kept to yourself. Now that you've lost your sight, you've been doing that more and more. Thinking in your head without saying anything out loud. But perhaps it's insensitive of me to say that."

"Does it make you lonely?"

"A little bit."

"Then I'll try to talk to you more." He reached out to grab his hand, running his fingers up and down the length of Kazuki's, confirming that they were the same as when he had held them last. "I was thinking about you. About how even though I deserved this blindness I brought upon myself, I would like to see your face again."

"My face?" Juubei could feel Kazuki's pulse increase just slightly beneath his hands. "But surely your sight would would better serve you if it could help you fight more proficiently."

"Fighting like I used to is the furthest thing from my mind. I know how to sense the location of others and how far my needles should reach. And I can imagine your face in my mind and think of exactly how it would look even in this moment. But..."

"But...?"

"It's your face from the past I'm remembering, isn't it? How do you look today? What about you has changed since I was able to see you last?"

"Oh, Juubei," Kazuki murmured. "My face isn't that special that you need to feel that way about it. Although I do wish with all my heart that I'll be able to look into your eyes once again, you don't need to worry if anything about me has changed other than what's in here."

He grabbed Juubei's hand and placed it against his chest, right over his heart. Juubei sucked in his breath. Didn't Kazuki have any idea how dangerous this was? Even though he had recommitted himself to protecting him, there was only so much of this intimate touching he could take before he crossed yet another line existing in the master-and-servant relationship they had been born into. Would Kazuki forgive him a second time? Would he be able to forgive himself?

"You're thinking again," Kazuki whispered, his breath tickling against Juubei's cheek. "Why won't you just tell me?"

"Kazuki. I swore to never do anything to hurt you again."

"And what you're thinking of will hurt me? I don't believe you. Your face looks so gentle to me right now."

"But my heart..."

"To me, that's the gentlest part of you." He felt Kazuki's hands grab the front of his shirt, and his head suddenly nestled against his chest. "When you believe in something, you believe in it with everything you have: your heart, your soul, your body, everything. You believed in MakubeX's vision because you didn't want to give up on the Limitless Fortress and your own future, and you still believe in him now that he's building the New Volts. But you've learned to believe in me again, too, and I know you won't hurt me with that faith. Your love... I also believe that it's something too great and beautiful to be a bad thing."

Juubei exhaled deeply, lifting his hands to cup Kazuki against his chest. "You knew?"

"We've known each other for a long time. And you've always been too straightforward to hide these kinds of things from me." He paused. Juubei could feel his fingers stirring slightly where they were balled into the fabric of his shirt. He imagined a serene but yet slightly flushed smile on his face, and he wanted to see it more than he wanted to see anything else in his life. He took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," Juubei said. "I love you, Kazuki. Almost from the very first moment I laid eyes on you, I've loved you. Enough to do anything for you. Enough so that my world fell apart when you left, and enough that I was willing to deal you as much pain as you gave me because I didn't know how to live anymore. I don't know what to do with a love that is protective, but can turn so destructive. What if I destroy the most important thing with my own hands? And even though I deserve the loss of my sight for what I did, I want to see your face. I don't want to only see who you were back then, but who you'll become. How you'll look at me. How you'll smile. But I don't want to see your face in pain like I last saw it. I desire so many conflicting things, that I know that if I try to satisfy them all, you _will _get hurt. That's why I couldn't say anything. But-"

"JUUBEI," Kazuki said, pressing his hand of his lips. "I do love your honesty, but you really have been thinking too much. Would you listen for a moment to what I have to say?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Because I love you, too. Quite a bit. And the Juubei I know won't make the same mistake twice and hurt me a second time. He won't cause me pain or destroy me, and especially won't have to see sadness in my eyes when I look at him. He will make me happy and keep me safe, and one day he will be able to see me again with his eyes to his heart's desire. I believe that. And I need you to believe it, too, because the moment you do, there will be nothing to keep you from achieving it."

Without warning, Kazuki's hands pulled away from his shirt and cupped his face, causing such a strong and distracting sensation that he was once again surprised when a pair of lips descended on his and kissed him without restraint, with a passion that was as almost as simple and straightforward as his own.

"Juubei," Kazuki whispered when he pulled away. The face Juubei imagined was a bit dazed and heated from the intimacy of their contact. "Let's go back to the springs together, okay? I want you to see how I look in a moment like this. How I get because of you. What you do to me."

Juubei nodded. He had so many memories of Kazuki. He could see him playing the koto dressed in his kimono, leading Elegance with that beautiful fire in his eyes, confronting him with all of his power even though it must have hurt him so deeply for them to be enemies. But he had never before seen Kazuki experiencing a moment like this. He wanted to know. He wanted to look in those eyes one more time and not have it be a moment of pain, but simply one filled with the pure, unrestrained grace of Kazuki's beauty.


End file.
